Suchergebnisse

Dedication -- Permissions -- Series Editor Preface -- Acknowledgments -- Contents -- List of Organizational Acronyms -- List of Figures -- List of Tables -- 1: Debating Immigration -- The Research Context: A Nation of Immigrants and Immigration-Related Activism -- Methodology: Studying the Immigrant Rights and Immigration Control Movements -- Data Collection -- The Organizations -- Road Map to the Book -- Notes -- Bibliography -- 2: The Boundaries of Belonging -- Putting Cultural Sociology into Closer Conversation with Social Movement Scholarship -- Culture in the Study of Social Movements: A Brief Introduction -- Culture in the Study of the Immigrant Rights and Immigration Control Movements -- Symbolic Boundaries: The Moral and Legal Dimensions -- Working the Boundaries -- Moving the Immigration Debate Online -- Notes -- Bibliography -- 3: Family Matters -- Family Unity: Children as Stand-ins -- ``Don´t Deport My Dad/Mom´´: Children as Political Actors -- ``Anchor Babies´´: Children as Pawns -- Family Separation: The Peril and Promise of Deportation and Enforcement -- Fighting Deportation and Enforcement: Families Without Borders -- The Other Side of Deportation and Enforcement: Families Within Borders -- Bringing in Politics: The Family as a Justification for Action -- Immigration Reform Is for Families -- The Politics of Enforcement -- Notes -- Bibliography -- 4: The Price of Citizenship -- Performing Citizenship as Civic-Economic Participation -- The First Step: A Path for Aspiring Americans -- ``Work Connects Us All´´: Immigrants´ Contributions -- Contributions Build Community: We Are All Citizens -- DREAMers: The Most Deserving of All? -- Preventing ``Amnesty´´: A Path Away from Citizenship -- What Part of ``Illegal´´ Don´t You Understand? Don´t Reward Lawbreakers -- Amnesty´s Fallout: The Consequences of Unchecked Immigration

AbstractIdeas about nation and national identity continue to be highly important, for both individuals and collectivities. In this article, I provide a cultural‐sociological reconstruction of the meanings of national identity conveyed in US and Canadian newspaper coverage of refugees entering, or potentially entering, the country. I engage Billig's theory of 'banal nationalism' and Anderson's idea of 'imagined comEties'. In Canada, there is a single narrative that encapsulates 'who we are'—a generous, welcoming country for people fleeing extraordinarily difficult circumstances, who will eventually integrate and succeed. National identity is processual, narrated as an ongoing 'national project'. In the US, there are two distinct storylines about 'who we are not'. Both begin with the country depicted as a humanitarian leader but diverge along political party lines. The Democrats quoted invoke history and 'American values' to say this is not a country that turns its back on those in need; the Republicans argue that this is not a country that exposes its people to harm, so refugee admissions must be halted. National identity is more solid, represented in passing; 'who we are' is taken for granted by spelling out 'who we are not'.

Abstract
This text brings into analytical focus the workings of whiteness within the politics regarding Ukrainian refugees in two neighboring countries, Austria and Czechia. This comparison aims to contextualize various racial hierarchies in which Ukrainian refugees are embedded, and to connect public discourses translated by mass media and critically accepted by scholars and experts with the personal experience of refugees and those recruited to help them in reception centers. We follow the layering and conversion of racial hierarchies through examining three interrelated realms of public policy: (1) the conflation of illiberal and liberal populisms concerning the Russian invasion and the subsequent refugee movements in the discursive practices of leading politicians and those responsible for refugee politics; (2) the intersectionality of gender, class, and race as a locus of control over Ukrainian women, who comprise the majority of those fleeing the country; and (3) elaborating an extreme case of forging whiteness, within the overt and covert racist practices concerning Ukrainian Romani refugees. To conclude, we discuss possible directions for future research that apply critical whiteness studies for understanding how racial hierarchies design public politics concerning refugees, and what can be done to minimize the injustices determined by whiteness.

AbstractThe September 2015 photograph of Alan Kurdi, a 3‐year‐old Syrian boy, lying facedown and dead on a Turkish beach, quickly became an iconic representation of Europe's "refugee crisis." Even though images of distant suffering of refugees have become ubiquitous, only a few become iconic. It is this cultural process of iconization that often bedevils sociologists interested in visuality. How does an image gain the necessary currency to sway public opinion or even policy making? Why do some photographs elicit profound compassion that transcends the borders of its particular context? In this review, we explore how various authors have addressed these questions, focusing on the iconic images of Alan Kurdi. The "iconic turn" in cultural sociology and in the social sciences more broadly speaking offers theoretical and methodological insights for the analysis of images such as those depicting refugees and asylum seekers. For this reason, we situate the current work in the field of refugee photography within the framework of cultural sociology, even if many of the scholars discussed are from other disciplines.

Intro -- Series Editor Preface -- Preface and Acknowledgments -- Praise for The Courage for Civil Repair -- Contents -- Notes on Contributors -- 1 Introduction: Understanding Civil Courage in International Migration -- Our Cases of Civil Courage in International Migration -- Cultivating Civil Courage by Leveraging the Pedagogic Potential of Exemplary Stories -- Understanding Civil Courage and the Use of Intervention -- Bibliography -- Part I Righteous, Between Yesterday and Today -- 2 The Righteous of the Transnation: Jews, Muslims, and a Politics of Friendship in Berlin -- Meaning-Making Around the Refugee Crisis -- Righteousness and the "New Jews" -- An Affective Politics of Civil Repair -- Conclusion -- Bibliography -- 3 "We Are Jewish and We Want to Help You": Righteous Cross-Group Solidarity Toward Muslim Refugees in Vienna -- Civil Sphere Theory, International Migration, and the Civil Function of Asylum Laws -- The Austrian "Refugee Crisis" in 2015 and Its Consequences -- Jewish Aid for Refugees: The Story of Shalom Alaikum -- A Typical Viennese Mélange: Sonia's Story -- Self-Reflection and Interpretation: Holocaust, Religion, and Antisemitism -- Conclusion: Shalom Alaikum as a Righteous Actor in International Migration -- Bibliography -- 4 Righteous Doctors: Reacting to the Inhumane Treatment of Asylum Seekers in Australia -- Historical and Policy Background -- Righteous Doctors and Civil Repair -- Health Professionals and Public Inquiries into the Detention of Asylum Seekers -- Doctors Advocating for Asylum Seekers and Challenging Governments in the Mass Media -- Doctors' Practical Acts of Solidarity that Contribute to Civil Repair -- The Discourse of Health and Medical Ethics in the Service of Civil Repair -- Conclusion -- Bibliography -- Part II Righteous, Today.

AbstractIn this article, we seek to exercise reflexivity in migration research by looking at the symbolic boundary work that sustains laypeople's understanding and use of specific labels. We do so through a qualitative, cultural sociological investigation of migration attitudes in Czechia. We explore the labels foreigner, migrant, and refugee, commonly used labels in Czech migration discourse. In short, we argue that research participants rely on different grounds for boundary work, informed by available cultural repertoires, when characterizing foreigners, migrants, and refugees. While boundary work related to the label foreigner calls upon criteria of citizenship and perceived cultural closeness, the boundary work concerning the other two labels—migrant and refugee—involves the moral criteria of deservingness. Our study addresses three major shortcomings in migration studies. First, the opinions of laypeople influence public policies and approaches to migration, yet in-depth qualitative studies of migration attitudes are scarce. Second, even though migration attitudes shape the character of the receiving context for people who cross borders, how laypeople engage with labels remains understudied. Finally, we heed the call for a 'reflexive turn' in migration studies, arguing that researchers must remain reflexive, not only about labels they use, but also how such labels are understood and used by research participants.

AbstractWe compare how religion is present in Portland, Maine and Danbury, Connecticut and how it influences the ways organizations provide social services to recently arrived immigrants. We find that a range of municipal, civic, and religious organizations shape contexts of reception in each city. In Portland, municipal organizations provide most of the services for the large refugee population. Religious organizations are more central in Danbury, and providers speak more often about religion in their work with the city's economic migrants. Collaboration among organizations is common, although religion sometimes acts as a barrier to collaboration in Portland. We argue that the religious dimensions of cities as contexts of reception are not homogenous and that variation between them is best explained by local factors including history, demographics and organizational ecology.

AbstractConsiderable research exists that examines attitudes toward migrants. Most studies are quantitative, relying on surveys or survey experiments, but a growing body of literature explores such attitudes from a qualitative perspective. At the same time, the study of symbolic boundaries and how people use cultural repertoires of meanings to draw distinctions between "us" and "them" is increasing. This review looks at research, both quantitative and qualitative, which has put these two streams of work into conversation with one another. We organize this work along three dimensions: (1) the micro‐level of individuals and their life‐worlds; (2) the meso‐level of negotiation among the moral communities of civil society; and (3) the macro‐level of institutions and policy. We also highlight those studies that cut across levels. By doing so, we help bridge the quantitative/qualitative divide. Studying attitudes toward migrants through the concept of symbolic boundaries allows us to apply a more sensitive and meaning‐centered approach toward attitude formation, contestation and change and to explore the linkages to available cultural repertoires.